What a government shutdown could mean for you
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 27 September 2023
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As the U.S. government moves closer to a shutdown, we hear what that means for the economy, federal workers and families across the country.
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Congress must agree to a short-term funding bill before an Oct. 1 shutdown, which could interrupt paychecks for many federal workers and military service members. Basic government services could also hang in the balance, from food safety inspections and child-care funds to aid for long-term disaster recovery. Already, FEMA has delayed billions of dollars in funding for future natural disasters in the event of a shutdown.
The Post’s Tony Romm explains why we are heading toward this impasse on federal funding, once again, and how a lengthy shutdown could test the U.S. economy.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We do not have to do things this way in this country. |
| 0:07.1 | It would be very refreshing for members of Congress to reach across the aisle, be reasonable, |
| 0:14.7 | and the brinksmanship that is very damaging to our reputation and bad for the economy, |
| 0:21.6 | bad for the American people, and ultimately leads to the breaking of our political system |
| 0:28.2 | that everything is founded on. |
| 0:30.6 | This is Randy Irwin, and he leads the National Federation of Federal Employees. |
| 0:36.0 | It's a union that represents over 100,000 federal workers, and Randy is preparing for the |
| 0:42.0 | government to shut down again. |
| 0:45.1 | And so, you know, our main thing is we're preparing our members for what's coming. |
| 0:50.2 | They're going to be losing their pay, you know, very shortly into a government shutdown |
| 0:56.5 | back in 2019, federal employees missed two paychecks, and that was devastating to hundreds |
| 1:03.4 | and hundreds of thousands of federal workers nationwide. |
| 1:07.1 | One of those federal workers was Devon Reed. |
| 1:09.8 | She's a union steward for the American Federation of Government employees. |
| 1:13.6 | They work with TSA staff and other federal workers. |
| 1:16.8 | And as another shutdown looms, she's thinking about the last time this happened a few years |
| 1:21.2 | ago, when federal workers didn't get paid for over a month. |
| 1:26.5 | And we had to create cash reviews. |
| 1:28.8 | We had to get, you know, gas cards, because a lot of us were unable to get to work. |
| 1:33.3 | It was a, hey, I'm going to call in. |
| 1:35.6 | I can't make an incident. |
| 1:36.9 | I don't have the gas money. |
... |
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